Appraisal Video: (3:07)

GUEST: I bought it in an antique mall and I was walking through and I saw the tile on it which I loved, just stopped me in my tracks and so I got my husband and he loved it, too, and we bought it from the antique mall.

APPRAISER: And what did you pay for it, if I may be so bold?

GUEST: Well, we paid $800 for it, but I thought the tile was special so...

APPRAISER: And do you know anything about the tile-- where they're from, when?

GUEST: I'm not sure. We thought it was probably an English piece, probably around the turn of the century and with the stylized design, I think we were hoping it would be a Macintosh tile. But we didn't know that and we couldn't find any information that showed this exact tile or this kind of a piece, so we really didn't know, so I'm hoping you can tell me what it is.

APPRAISER: Okay, it's great that you would think They're Macintosh, because this type of stylized rose is often referred to as a Glasgow Rose, after Macintosh-- Macintosh who was this great designer at the turn of the century, specializing in the Arts and Crafts movement, so he did work very much in this style. I don't believe that these very tiles were designed or produced by Mr. Macintosh. A great many competitors copied him and worked in that style for a long time, both in England, where these were made, and in this country. So this is an interesting way of setting tiles, putting a lovely tile backsplash on a little washstand. It works very nicely. Another reason why it is not a Macintosh, a Macintosh piece would be more rectilinear and of really great construction quality.

GUEST: That's what I thought.

APPRAISER: There's nothing wrong with this, but it's not the greatest, all right? The period is the same as the tiles, about 1900. It seems to be made of pine, okay, with a stone top, but there's not tremendous value in the actual chest. The tiles are very popular these days, and often people will pop them out of a cabinet just to sell them, you know. Tiles like these, which are made in a technique called cuenca, all right? It's a mass-production technique made to imitate squeeze bag, but these are done by machine, and those go from $100 to $150, depending on how much people love them. Had they been done actually by hand in squeeze bag, it's at least twice that much.

GUEST: Hmm.

APPRAISER: So, you have from $400 to $500 worth of tiles here and just about $300 to $400 worth of cabinet. So you didn't do bad, but you can't retire on this.